APCHICAGO - The Chicago White Sox’ biggest inning in five years made Jon Garland the American League’s first 11-game winner.
Juan Uribe and Paul Konerko hit three-run homers and Frank Thomas added a solo shot in a 10-run sixth inning to lead Chicago to a 12-6 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday night.
Jermaine Dye also homered for the White Sox (43-22) who overcame a 6-1 deficit to extend the best record in the major leagues.
Despite a sub-par performance, Garland improved to 11-2.
“I probably shouldn’t have but it worked out to my advantage,” he said. “The guys came up big with the bats and they were hitting the ball well.”
Especially in the sixth when the White Sox sent 13 hitters to the plate in their biggest inning since April 18, 2000, when they scored 11 runs against Seattle.
“It kind of (happened) out of nowhere,” Konerko said. “We weren’t really doing too much with the bats the last couple of days, but I really don’t know where it was other than we just busted out. We hadn’t really had an inning like that all year, so it came at the right time.”
Garland gave up six earned runs and six hits in six innings. He struck out four and walked three. He lasted just long enough to take advantage of the big inning.
“Early this year when I have been missing I have been missing away from the plate, today I missed over the plate with a lot of stuff. They got me,” said Garland, who gave up a season-high three home runs.
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“We’ve got to finish it out, we didn’t. We gave up a big inning. Ten runs is a big inning,” Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin said.
Trailing 6-1, the White Sox got one run in the fifth on a two-out double by Joe Crede and an error by third baseman Troy Glaus.
In the sixth, the White Sox hit the three homers and scored 10 runs to take a 12-6 lead.
Thomas homered off starter Russ Ortiz (4-6) with one out in the sixth, his fourth in just 21 at-bats since returning from a foot injury.
Poor defense from Arizona contributed to the big inning that followed.
With another run in and two runners on, A.J. Pierzynski hit a grounder to shortstop Royce Clayton who made a nice stab but overthrew Craig Counsell covering at second and one run scored.
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